


Gray's Cipher

by this-caring-lark (firstimecaller)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Codes & Ciphers, Diary/Journal, Epistolary, Eventual Johnlock, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-03-12 04:49:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3344198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstimecaller/pseuds/this-caring-lark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of my Christmas fic, Frothy Charms Amp Ships: Happy Christmas from SH, but you don't have to read that to follow this. All's you need to know: Sherlock planned a traditional Christmas for John, who is back at 221B after Mary fled (having faked her pregnancy), and the two idiots finally held hands and managed an oblique confession of sorts. Sherlock gave John the journal he kept during his time in exile, and it is of course encrypted. </p><p>This is a diary/epistolary lark that throws in some cipher decoding fun. You can follow along and decrypt them yourself -- notes on that at the end of this chapter.</p><p>Number of chapters not yet known, apologies for that. Not beta'd or Brit-picked either; errata alerts welcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The odd bit was that it wasn’t a very nice edition, wasn’t unusual or particular in any way. It was a typical copy you’d have found at W.H. Smith any day of the week in the early 90s. Not even textbook-grade, neither annotated for modern students, as later editions would be, nor organized regionally, the innovation of the 40th edition some years back. That she had given it any thought at all had been the marvel of the thing, and while other medical students had leather-bound copies handed down through generations or given by non-medical parents in hopes of beginning a new tradition, John had proudly carried on with his bog-standard edition, bearing the hidden inscription “go be brilliant, baby brother”, in Harry’s doctor-quality scrawl. 

At first he’d assumed that Mrs. Hudson had nicked it for a try at self-diagnosis, possibly to pinpoint the elusive hip ailment, but he’d asked her not long before moving his things out of 221B, when the empty spot on the shelf had begun to collect its own dust. She hadn’t seen it, and wondered with a sniffle if Sherlock had borrowed it for one of their cases. That had been his first thought, of course, but he remembered seeing it the night before Sherlock’s…fall, had a clear-as-a-bell memory of Sherlock picking it up and returning it to the shelf near John’s chair, tapping it into place with a finality that would cramp John’s stomach when he later thought of it.

But here it was again as the new year shone outside the window of his room in 221B. Shortly after their return from the Holmes’ cottage, the memory of their joined hands still on repeat in his head, John had found it on his bed, next to a smallish moleskine of the sort favoured by Sherlock, and a small piece of paper. The notebook was battered and creased but full of writing, Sherlock’s writing he could tell at a glance. And that was all he could tell. The first page bore the following inscription:

_tmoz if xsbnsic rfhd  
_ _i iu uog sfhw vt z krn  
_ _enqe ahnb a fufh_

That was all.

Well, that wasn’t _all_ all. Not in the least, but it was all he could read on that first page. The following pages were more cramped, full of writing, dirt, occasionally blood. All encoded.

John looked at the note. This was also Sherlock’s hand, but more composed and careful:

_Mycroft had to barter to retrieve this journal. His Christmas gift to me, and mine to you. It’s in cipher of course, but you have everything you need to unlock it. If you choose not to, I will accept that, but if you do read it, I want that choice to be intentional. Do with it as you will; I remember every line. I will give you a hint as to how to begin: at the beginning._

He looked back at the first line of the first page, “tmoz if xsbnsic rfhd”. He could hear Sherlock’s violin downstairs. He opened his laptop and typed “decrypt tmoz if xsbnsic rfhd”.

> Showing results for [decrypt  ** _tomoz_**  if  ** _xsb nsic_**  rfhd](https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&biw=1280&bih=684&q=decrypt+tomoz+if+xsb+nsic+rfhd&spell=1&sa=X&ei=zJHQVNroKoubNsSRgYAN&sqi=2&ved=0CBoQvwUoAA)

A handful of entries, all useless. Thanks but no thanks. He next tried “cipher tmoz if xsbnsic rfhd”, which yielded several similarly unhelpful hits.

Fine. Basic principles.

Sherlock had confirmed it was in cipher, so what came up if he searched just that word?  Ah, nothing in particular but lots of sites with encryption and decryption tools. The first one after Wikipedia was a compact page with a list of ciphers and cipher decoders. Only twenty or so, but John’s head swam as he thought of attempting to crack the code using each of them. _Dammit, couldn’t Sherlock just translate the damn thing and be done with it? Why the mystery?_

“If you do read it, I want that choice to be intentional.” He could respect raising the threshold a bit, though he suspected that Sherlock overestimated his cryptography skills. Or maybe not; John glanced through the descriptions of the ciphers, and one caught his eye: “A pretty strong cipher for beginners, and one that can be done on paper easily.” Beginners. Maybe this was the place to start. The cipher was called a Vigenere cipher, and it required a passphrase. 

Maybe the copy of _Gray’s_ was the clue. How had that begun for him? As a gift from Harry with a scrawled inscription. He typed the tongue-bending encrypted text into the box on the page, carefully checking each letter, clicked “Decrypt,” then typed “go be brilliant baby brother” as the passphrase. As he typed, he watched the letters transform into the no less impenetrable, “nynv ho phqfsvj qfgf”.

No sale there then. He thought through all the phrases that had recurred during their time together, all the phrases that meant something to each or both of them, and nothing succeeded. “More later” and “don’t mention it” were early candidates, and he had a spark of hopeful insight with “Vatican Cameos”, but nothing yielded anything other than more and more rubbish.

John scratched at his temple and looked again at Sherlock’s note. “At the beginning”? No, too literal. What had their beginning been? A woman in pink, scratching her fingernails bloody into the floor. _R-A-C-H-E._ No good.  An aborted attempt at flirtation. _M-A-R-R-I-E-D-T-O-M-Y-W-O-R-K_ , and variations thereon. No no no. A cup of coffee with Mike Stamford, a mad man in a lab, besuited and yet wild, and—oh!

A-F-G-H-A-N-I-S-T-A-N-O-R-I-R-A-Q

The letters righted themselves magically, but what they spelled out… _oh._ Of course. This was the writing of a man in exile who had lied to almost everyone he cared about by faking his own death to protect them. Of course it wasn’t going to be an encoded riddle. It was going to be something true.

_this is painful john  
_ _i do not know if i can  
_ _only that i must_

John slumped back in his chair at the campaign desk in his room. Normally he would have used the sitting room, but it felt wrong to translate Sherlock’s personal thoughts while in their common space. This was a gift created in cramped and desperate places, and John would honour that legacy by crouching over his own tiny work space.

He was tired. If the first page, written when Sherlock was still optimistic and believed he would unravel Moriarty’s network in a fortnight, was as grim as this, John felt a pang of fear at what he might read next. But he pressed on. He had held this man’s hand in his own, just as he had held his memory while these words had been written. There was something Sherlock wanted him to learn before the promise of those few soft moments at Holmes cottage could expand into their lives here in London.

The next page was full of text, with line breaks instead of punctuation.

> dsxeu tnc dvot tzaw lhv jwgvsx as fstichi gb qw pgztglcw arrwiea xoggtb olas  
>  a sesm zfn man msunpeugax yohus soh  
>  cbn avjx ztsrlqgz tg wmssgr ag u uruwawsfm  
>  v ta gkh ehcvv  
>  tig m gfs fww  
>  p iicfp cgw

John silently cursed as he carefully typed the unreadable text into the Vigenere decryption box. He had left “Afghanistan or Iraq” in place, and assumed it would be a simple matter of translation, but he was wrong. More gibberish. _He couldn’t possibly have used a different passphrase for each page, yeah?_

He looked again at the journal with its encoded message. He noticed that on the facing page, Sherlock had written in parentheses, “ftay srdwg srjvv / jeles / uwtvk fxris”. He tried decoding that with the first passphrase and was gratified to see numbers appear next to the words “optic nerve”. Four seven seven / seven...477 and 7?

He thought back to the black lotus on the Christmas tree, the black lotus left with Soo-Lin’s body, and the ciphers on the brick wall hard by the train yard. Maybe it was time to fetch the _A-Z_.  

Walking to the door of his room, he listened for movement below. He heard the low murmur of the television and decided to brave it out. If he couldn’t face Sherlock while in the middle of unraveling the secrets he’d been given permission to unlock, there was no hope for them at any rate. Affecting a normal gait, he trotted down the stairs and into the front room, making note of Sherlock’s posture, slumped before the television.

“‘lo, Sherlock. Any idea where the _A-Z_ has got to?”

“If you’re trying to solve a Vigenere cipher with the _A-Z_ , I don’t think you’ll get very far.” There was a note of disappointment and another of disdain, but John recognized both as red herrings.

“Quite. No, but I’ve got two numbers and a body part, so…”

He saw Sherlock’s face brighten and cloud over bothatonce, and felt certain he knew the source of both reactions. Sherlock tried to keep his voice casual while his pulsing jawline betrayed him. “Oh, I see. That makes sense, then. Won’t work, though. I told you…you have all the tools you need. I can spare a hint but it wouldn’t be sporting. Not if you’ve already gotten that far.”

John kept his voice casual, but it broke in the middle as he quoted, “‘I do not know if I can, only that I must’.” He ventured a look over at Sherlock, expecting to see discomfort and exposure but noting only a swell of vicarious pride.

“Well done, you. The rest should come easily, soon enough.”

John felt that now-familiar blush creep into his cheeks as he felt Sherlock’s approbation melt the remaining awkwardness away. “It was awfully clever, the beginner/beginning bit.”

“You tried Harry’s inscription first, of course.”

John grimaced. “Yes, well. We can’t all get our deductions right at first crack.”

“No, no, I’m pleased. But listen, John. I was right. It was difficult. More than I realized. I was far too sanguine about…far too many things. You’ll see that. I want you to know that, to see it through my eyes as it all dawned on me. I want—  Well, you’ll see.  Goodnight, John.”

“Goodnight, Sherlock.” He hesitated in the doorway, unsure if he should thank Sherlock again or just carry on upstairs. He chose the latter, turned, and regained the stair to his room.

Exhausted, he decided to sleep and revisit the cipher before work.  

At three in the morning, John was awakened by Sherlock’s violin. Something plaintive but lilting. He looked across the room at his boomeranged copy of _Gray’s Anatomy_ , and with a start, realized its significance. Turning on the desk light, he quickly thumbed to page 477 and counted to the seventh word. “As”. He plugged it into the Vigenere cipher, but it was no good. Sighing heavily he looked back at the site with descriptions of all the encryption tools, and here again one caught his eye, the summary of something called a One Time Pad:

“A virtually uncrackable cipher that relies heavily upon a random source for an encryption key.”

He imagined Sherlock, alone in a dirty room somewhere in Eastern Europe, an MI6 laptop before him and John’s copy of _Gray’s_ beside him on a grim swaybacked bed. He imagined him seeing the phrase “virtually uncrackable” and feeling a kinship with its mystery and remove. Refocusing on the real book before him, John found the seventh sentence of the 477 th page, and read:

> As each nerve passes through the corresponding optic foramen it receives a sheath from the dura mater, and as it enters the orbit this sheath subdivides into two layers, one of which becomes continuous with the periosteum of the orbit; the other forms a sheath for the nerve, and becomes lost in the sclerotic.

Again cursing Sherlock’s Byzantine methods, but excited at the confirming description of the optic nerve, he slowly typed the encoded text into the box marked “Your message” on the One Time Pad site, and then more quickly typed in the snippet of text regarding the optic axis into the box marked “The pad”. Finally, he clicked “Decrypt,” and felt his breath catch at the revealed words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll reveal the words in the next chapter, but like John, you have all the tools you need to DIY. 
> 
> I used Rumkin's excellent cipher tools site for the Vigenere and One Time Pad ciphers, both encoding and decrypting. I giggled when I saw the site pointer for the One Time Pad is "otp.php." OTP! [Too bad the extension isn't an acronym for "personal web page" instead of "personal home page." I'll show myself out.] 
> 
> I used a combination of (1) a print facsimile copy of Henry Gray's original 1858 edition of Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical, published in 1991 and reprinted in 1992, 1993, and 1994 by The Promotional Reprint Company Limited, which seems about Harry's speed, to find the cipher pads, and (2) one of the Internet Archive's full text copies of the same printing of the 1858 edition (https://archive.org/stream/anatomydescripti1858gray/anatomydescripti1858gray_djvu.txt), so that I would not have to laboriously retype anatomist-speak. Word of caution if you follow along with the Internet Archive text: There are a large number of (usually obvious) scanning-generated typos. In other words, you can't just cut and paste from the Archive and get each decryption right, which takes some of the fun out of it. I encrypted using the text from physical print edition of the book.
> 
> I have most of the journal entries written and cipher pads chosen, so subsequent chapters will explore the twin worlds of Sherlock in exile and John's discoveries.
> 
> I'd love feedback. Comments and kudos are precious, and you're all beautiful.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if breaking the chapters before the reveals is good suspense / a satisfying opportunity to DIY (decrypt-it-yourself), or just annoying.

He should have known it, the way it was staring him in the face when he translated the first line. “This is painful John.”  Not “this is painful” full stop, but “this is painful **_John_**.” This wasn’t a diary; it was letter to him, two years in the writing. From the looks of latter pages, it was a letter written from the bloody front lines of a battle Sherlock was sometimes in danger of losing. The entry that unwound itself on the One Time Pad site slapped him in the face:

_dates may make this too simple to decrypt so no calendar markers except this_  
 _i last saw you fortyeight hours ago_  
 _you were speaking my eulogy to a tombstone_  
 _i am not there_  
 _but i saw you  
_ _i heard you_

He looked back at the key, and saw that his Sherlock (how strange, how well the name of this ever-mutable man now wore the possessive in John’s mind) was a poet too:

> As each nerve passes through the corresponding optic foramen it receives a sheath from the dura mater, and as it enters the orbit this sheath subdivides into two layers, one of which becomes continuous with the periosteum of the orbit; the other forms a sheath for the nerve, and becomes lost in the sclerotic.

A tale of joining, a tale of loss. Allegory in the damn optic axis.

It was pushing four in the morning and John felt his eyes sting a bit. He wanted to press on, but wanted more to fall asleep while pondering this flood of new information.  So he did.

 _God but breakfast is going to be awkward._  

*          *          * 

It wasn’t, but only because Sherlock was long gone by the time John ventured into the kitchen later that morning. It was time for his normal pre-clinic cuppa, and he assured himself that Sherlock’s absence meant a new case and not avoidance. He briefly considered bringing his copy of _Gray’s_ to work – a doctor with a copy of an anatomy text, what about that could raise brows? – but decided against when he reflected on the already emotionally-compromising content of the first two entries. Best to keep the uncoding homebound and protected.

When he returned home, there was no evidence that Sherlock had been back during the day.  That was not odd, but it was a little strange that there had been no _in medias res_ texts, no urgent demands that John drop everything and rush to meet him somewhere dark or dangerous. John shrugged off the feeling that Sherlock’s silence had anything to do with the journal waiting for him upstairs, and continued his early evening ritual of tea and leftovers. He had tried to keep his mind off the journal throughout the day, unsuccessfully. Phrases from the two revealed entries had interwoven themselves through patient records and mindless conversations.  _You were speaking my eulogy to a tombstone. I don’t know if I can only that I must. I am not there. I saw you I heard you._

He finished off the curry and climbed the stair to his room. With Sherlock out of the flat, it felt even more strange to be secreted away in his quarters, so he took the journal, _Gray’s_ , and his laptop and returned to the sitting room.  He looked at the paging code for the next entry, _osk uiam larrs / fvv / ohbnzhl emyboa_ , and quickly translated it: one nine three / one / orbital region.  More eyes. The first sentence of the 193rd page read:

> The Rectus Superior (Attollens), the thinnest and narrowest of the four Recti, arises from the upper margin of the optic foramen beneath the Levator palpebrae and Superior oblique, and from the fibrous sheath of the optic nerve, and is inserted, by a tendinous expansion, into the sclerotic coat of the eyeball, about three or four lines from the margin of the cornea.

_Not much poetry in that_ , he thought, a little relieved and a little disappointed.  

ypzv hcrm syi  
nsl esie ehcvtrt mi  
p atz tbboagg qrjn  
z noo pqbbl mv cti zfi xjx tajb lmej  
rzx b jeh wdtv us knig w jgk qm lhzm vizcwpl  
brq gag jhti mexk tbu txaaeje  
ysu jldf rect av oo lai  
vyt ary r amvomsm  
ofh nzaz xifl  
zjm px pt lw 

He slowly typed the encrypted passage into the OTP site, finding that his eagerness to unlock the secrets of the text was improving rather than hindering his speed and accuracy. He was concentrating so hard on entering the pad sentence correctly that he didn’t hear the tumblers in the street door lock turn over. He didn’t hear Sherlock’s otherwise unmistakable steps on the stair as he watched the words unscramble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See Chapter 1 endnotes for information on DIY decoding materials. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

_Not this. Why did he have to remember this?_  

There it was before him, a capsule of the images and conversations that had haunted his past three years, casually appearing on his computer screen as if directions to a café or instructions for programming the DVR. There was a brief and choking moment between the impact from the decoded words and the realisation that Sherlock was already in the room, a crust of January snow on his bespoke oxfords – the latter being the only Sherlock-adjacent things that John could look at with these words ringing in his head:

_five days ago_  
 _you were looking up_  
 _i was looking down_  
 _i was lying to you for the last time_  
 _all i can hope is that i end my work quickly_  
 _and can come back and explain_  
 _you will call me an ass_  
 _but not a machine_  
 _not this time  
_ _let it be so_

“Ah. You weren’t expecting me.”

“No, I, uh…I didn’t think. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I’ll go.” John scrambled together his laptop, _Gray’s_ , the journal, and his notes, and was half way off his seat when Sherlock interrupted him.

“It’s alright, John. You have permission. I’d rather you translate it here, ask any questions, instead of tucking away in your room like it’s some terrible secret, or something to be…to be ashamed of.” He mumbled the last phrase like an afterthought, but there was too much potential truth in it to be left unanswered.

“Okay, Sherlock. I’ll work out here. It’s tough to read, but it’s not shame or vicarious embarrassment. It’s horrible to relive, and you’ve written about those moments…even from the other side, even knowing you got through and that it was all for a purpose….” And here John took in a breath and released his words like air through a boiling kettle, “It’s horrible how much I hated myself for calling you a machine, how I thought it might have caused…you know…and even though it didn’t, even though you didn’t, I’m still furious at myself for what I said, and for Moriarty for putting us in that no-win situation, and I guess…I guess I’m a little ashamed of how it’s affecting me. I think it would feel good to punch something now.”

“I see. That’s flip, but actually, I think I do see. It might make you feel better to translate the next page. I have some research to do anyway. And John?”

John was already translating “tbu litpl yohf / kef / ahsj” into “two eight four / two / arse,” glad to have a task after his admission. He absently turned his head from the Vigenere translation and replied with a hum of acknowledgement.

“I am sorry for lying to you, then and afterwards. But I hope Christmas demonstrated that I’m not a machine.”  He moved into the kitchen and the waiting microscope, while John pondered the ramifications of this rare apology. Putting that aside to follow Sherlock’s suggestion, he looked for the second sentence on page 284 and read, intrigued:

> It arises from the superior curved line of the ilium and the portion of bone, including the crest, immediately behind it — from the posterior surface of the last piece of the sacrum, the sides of the coccyx, and posterior surface of the great sacro-sciatic and posterior sacro-iliac ligaments.

_Ah, the gluteus maximus. If this is poetry, I’m in_ , he thought, laughing quietly to himself at the double entendre.

qm otkmvk yf aq moel sdy dim ycpv aioe tvos fg hvap  
qh emnoe wegh  
chwyvbl copo wa qfl oifz vvrxvvktbuar  
"fwnoicqbxpwa" embsx oz xeevuwkekqce  
an nfsp'x czk mmyekm wwyt  
fiy b dek tjv axnaima pepwrnz  
cqi dwr qhr pxbafyj

He put the pad with the encrypted text and again felt the satisfying click when the words righted themselves. Good words:

it occurs to me that you may have felt like an arse  
in small part  
looking back on our last conversation  
"conversation" being an exaggeration  
it wasn't our finest hour  
but i was the gluteus maximus  
you but the minimus

John felt something heavy lighten, and he looked up in time to catch Sherlock smirking into the microscope in the kitchen. 

Riding the wave of reassurance, he quickly translated the next page and organ reference, snd miim xbvr bzvv lknly, as six five five / nine / lungs, he went thumbing through Gray’s for page 655. The next passage to decode was lengthy: 

poin jx avzs ivbelrx qzymiu bunxebrx k –  
bf --  
jintb qdql gbugq prvdby  
znr gt ahvv msuns u turcypg om ynnil swnsl xpupzos  
e dusl eluk iw osb uue vm afgyk fxt lss iifw nsjg nf latofze anatxa  
noape qs qknsl xbuh os  
phcrx mim gwo pi  
zx i umwh weie br wic mdvklt si vbmlzig  
nnurdiwtxl tec hxpy ei  
pjyvvp ctn suik ybxt qyrrut

Counting the ninth sentence of a text as dense as Dr. Gray’s tome was at best frustrating, but after a few passes in which he thought he had the correct sentence only to realize it was too short, John found it:

> The anterior border of the right lung corresponds to the median line of the sternum, and is in contact with its fellow, the pleurae being interposed, as low as the fourth costal cartilage; below this, the contiguous borders are separated by a V-shaped interval, formed at the expense of the left lung, and corresponding to which the pericardium is exposed.

When he looked up again towards the kitchen, he wasn’t surprised to see the smirk had left Sherlock’s face. Contact and exposure. The next words were a return to grim form.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still trying to get the right blend of content and suspense, which is difficult without doubling up or doing very short chapters. Thanks to everyone who has given their input on what works and what doesn't. This is definitely a WIP with emphasis on the W and P.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short one with cliffhanger.

when we were running cuffed together i –  
no --  
seven days since london  
ran so hard today i thought my lungs would explode  
i know that is not how it works but the mind goes to strange places  
could mh could find me  
could you fix me  
if i died here in the middle of nothing  
cigarettes may kill me  
before you have your chance

“Sherlock. May I ask you a question?”

“Hmm."

“How much did Mycroft know and how much should I want to exercise my punching impulse on his face?”

“That is both a very difficult and a very easy question. How much he knew…I never did. He had ways of reaching me, for the first year or so, and then there was a long period when I went entirely dark. The messages get shorter because I was doing the ciphers by hand when I was separated from the MI6 laptop, except for a few when I found an internet café or risked theft. How much you should want to punch him is easy, and you already know the answer.”

“I’m glad you’ve stopped smoking.”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly.”

“Are they all as dark as this?”

“Mostly.”

John put the journal aside for long enough to make himself a sandwich and tea, then went back to the dining table and began again, this time pointed toward page ftay srdwg oas, otherwise known as 471, and the 4th sentence (wwlr), where he was promised a description of the amygdalae (qmdmkayiw).

He scanned his medical memory – ah, of course, the part of the brain responsible for processing emotional memory. _Bloody hell when it rains…._

> The parts entering into the composition of this body are, from behind forwards, the commissura brevis, situated in the incisura posterior; in front of this, a laminated conical projection, the pyramid; more anterior, a larger eminence, the uvula; placed between the two rounded lobes which occupy the sides of the valley, the amygdalae; and connected with them by a commissure of grey matter, indented on the surface, and called the furrowed band.

_Couldn’t have just said “cerebellum”, wanted to point to the amydgala. Goddamn drama queen._ John translated the passage,

gvx eojlafyx xyig ob utg ulip tajflmxv rnmx lpvuf mrs srmi  
kvq nszb uxroe duddf ulmpu  
ftm ewgfrz zw vtjwiws lbqqmq bu hcfv  
q kbfuar tx jfkijmq tezl hb yal vwthods nnw lry hb lksxpehui km  
jig buwicrd u ip ewwxiaz xyzclgs mvssimqa bj --  
fvsi kmmollcitni qh  
esg’p wxbi

\--and was hardly surprised to find another gut punch.


	5. Chapter 5

_I knew this was written to me, but not…not that it would be this…direct._ John stared again at the words that had unscrambled themselves before him on the OTP site:

not possible that it has been fourteen days since you said  
the most human human being  
the memory is already limned in dust  
i should be focused only on the network and how to dismantle it  
but instead i am sifting through memories of --  
stop distracting me  
don’t stop

John tried to ignore the nagging feeling of guilt that was thrumming through him with each heartbeat, but it was there and it was unavoidable. He had spent those post-lapsarian days in a haze of whisky and guilt and anger, and Sherlock…Sherlock had spent them thinking about the finer things John had said. It was both parallel and incongruous.

“Sherlock?”

His flatmate had moved from the microscope to the other side of the dining table, researching some unknown link in a undescribed case, but it was clear he had never entirely let his attention wander from John and his encrypted quarry.

“Mmm?”

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but….”

“…but the entries seem all to do with you?”

“Yes, and that’s alright, of course it is, but I have to ask…”

“…why was I so fixated on you and memories of you?”

“I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, but alright, if you insist.”

“John. Think about it. You can’t be ignorant of your impact on me. You became my moral compass and better nature after knowing me for a few hours. By the time those words were written, you were quite engrained in my thinking, and yet I had forced myself to do without you, quite on purpose, for the first time in months and months and for an indefinite period. Of course you were at the forefront of my thoughts. Of course you were.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Though, to be honest, it’s not very…”

“…romantic?”

John blushed and cursed his blushing. “Right. Not very.”

“No, but you’re only on day fourteen. Keep reading.” This was said with a smirk and a wink, and John felt the apprehension of the last two entries morph into something much more comfortable. 

“You said they were mostly dark.”

“They are. But some light gets in.”

John reached across the table and allowed his thumb to grace the side of Sherlock’s hand as it rested on the keyboard. He couldn’t help it and didn’t want to. The things he was learning about this man. The things he would learn.

Sherlock paused long enough to accept the touch, then started typing again. It wasn’t a rejection, just an acknowledgement that the Work must go on, and John took it as such.

He moved on to the next cipher.  On the left, page marker ftay fvdw xitvk / bno / rrfou (four five eight / two / brain); on the right, the encrypted phrases:

iahaljz xapv hbcl, jsx znjl vhcsrk xf um wtftx ltykeg  
mlv whygv dl trio oevi kpel u lmpo keh jhwp m gkqaq rcn jepbfi mwg  
tz ms xuur v zal avyss cgpy wkcr ehcfrvzgo algjem jwwe s lfsy  
dlipa afczu fudkiq pbphvsf gubymvg  
sjn kje hlg jcskx  
a fs yrgd gtk  
eod qsi hturpk smr

The second sentence of page 458 did indeed concern the brain: 

> In the fissure between the two anterior lobes the anterior cerebral arteries may be seen ascending to the corpus callosum; and at the back part of this portion of the fissure, the anterior curved portion of the corpus callosum descends to the base of the brain.

The corpus callosum, great communicator across hemispheric boundaries! Maybe this one wouldn’t be so bad. He typed in the text from the journal and watched the letters unwind.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short, bittersweet

It was still pretty bad.

another five days, not much closer to my first target  
the other mh said once that i look sad when i think you cannot see  
to be fair i was hours away from launching myself from a roof  
which would dampen anyones spirits  
but she was right  
i do look sad  
and you cannot see

And now the guilt sucker-punched him again. How many times had Sherlock accused John of not seeing – a clue, a motive, an obvious deduction – uncountable times, but those had always been oversights of no consequence to either of them, not personally, not like this. Across the years and miles, here was Sherlock all but accusing John of blindness – not to some element in a case, but to something far more fundamental. What had Molly seen that John never did? He locked the question away for later consideration, and cleared his throat.

“I think I’m getting tired. My skills at typing in 19th century medical text aren’t all they’re meant to be. Still haven’t cracked this next one, must be errors in my transcription,” he lied. “I’ll start again tomorrow.”

Sherlock was still absorbed in his own research and did not look up from his computer as John gathered the pile of papers and laptop. When he spoke, it took John by surprise. “The corpus callosum. Facilitates communication between the right and left sides of the brain, correct?”

“Er, yes, that’s right. Why?”

“You know why. It’s alright that you’re uncomfortable. It’s to your credit. If you’d rather that I didn’t know how far along you’ve gotten, I understand that as well. But John, there’s no occasion for guilt or self-recrimination. You always only saw what I wanted you to see, you understand? This journal…it’s like a corpus callosum between who I was, and who I wanted to be. It was my way of communicating things I couldn’t have done in any other space. Certainly not to you. So even when these entries make you wince, realize that you’re helping to uncover the person I want you to see. Goodnight, John.”

Wordlessly John turned and climbed to his room. He put the laptop, book, journal, and notes on his desk. He undressed in the dark and got into bed. Finally, with Sherlock’s words – the spoken and the written – swirling around in his head, he took his extra pillow and hugged it close, trying to shut out the image of Sherlock, jumping from the roof, or Sherlock, scribbling away in some dark bolthole. He squeezed the pillow until it was an hourglass in his arms and his muscles complained from the tension. He squeezed again until the images retreated and he could relax again. He fell asleep that way, cradling the pillow like a lover.

*     *     *

He woke with a cramp in his shoulder from hugging the pillow too tightly, then realized it was only two in the morning and Sherlock’s violin had once again roused him from a nervous sleep into a gentle if premature waking. Shaking off what remained of a thin veil of drowsiness, he walked over to the campaign desk and looked down at the next two pages, each of which bore a single line in code:

 b tmea pb gmslzb

and

b tqks dka jooshv 

The two page references:  fnbl srdwg oas / jmmed / tdswaace and osk zeimf seec / jqo / hyp translated to five seven one / seven / tympanum and one seven zero / six / hip, which yielded:

> The middle ear, or tympanum, is an irregular cavity, compressed from without  inwards, and situated within the petrous bone.

and

> This articulation is an enarthrodial, or ball and socket joint, formed by the reception of the globular head of the femur into the cup-shaped cavity of the acetabulum.

John translated these quickly and thought to himself, _sentimental git_ when he saw the decrypted words:

i miss my violin

and

i miss mrs hudson

He went back to bed. Considering the heavy imagery of the past few entries, these were probably the best he could hope for before trying to sleep again. He could hear the aforementioned instrument still singing into the night, and let it lure him over the edge into slumber.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> downgraded the rating for now and will raise it later when the content takes us there


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been too long, and this is brief, but I hope to get back on track soon! Thanks for all the comments -- I really appreciate them.

When John woke, his first thought was the diary. The image of Sherlock that had been shaping itself from the translated passages – a Sherlock who was determined but maudlin, committed to the work but falling into a rare nostalgia – was both familiar and jarring. John needed to know more, learn more. The light through the window had barely lost its blue dawn tinge when he moved over to the small desk and opened his laptop to translate the next page pointer: fnbl fbcj leise / vznutjku / tbvyne. His brows rose at the anatomical reference:  547 / 19 / tongue. The actual passage was not nearly as promising (“ _promising_ ” _? what are you expecting, Watson?_ ):

> Its base, or root, is directed backwards, and connected with the os hyoides by numerous muscles, to the epiglottis by three folds of mucous membrane, which form the glosso-epiglottic ligaments, and to the soft palate and pharynx by means of the anterior and posterior pillars of the fauces.

– though John did lose himself for a moment in a less-than-clinical consideration of Sherlock’s own glosso-epiglottic ligaments and their near neighbours, and what it might be like to introduce his…what did Gray write in the next sentence?...“apex or tip” to the corresponding member of Sherlock’s oral array. He nervously roused himself out of that daydream and returned attention to the next encrypted lines, which were relatively brief:

q psot lio afvb  
xdwq jlmnwiut tgk solov shlv fvtlv gsz   
uwn uxcif ehis bki lfy witr  
nvs ae nzce

How bad could a brief message be?

Maybe not gut-wrenching, but cutting:

I want tea John  
Even builders tea would suit right now  
You never make the tea John  
Why is that

_Of course I make the tea! You little sh—_ Wait. When was the last time that John remembered making tea for two? Not his own morning and after work cuppas, but tea for both of them. _Well I’ll be damned. I’m a shit roommate._

He remembered Sherlock’s forced smile and his offer of “tea?” when John asked him to be his best man…the eyeball floating therein not even registering until after Sherlock had taken a preoccupied sip.  John smiled to himself. There were many things he had done wrong in this friendship, but it was grounding to know there were others he could remedy. He resolved to have the kettle going and two cups on the table by the time Sherlock ventured from his room.

In the meantime, another translation.

b texr wir xii rotmowmf eyhrx bms kmewbsg  
rt crkdwf tbe qg tr dlxel  
poiy ka jzasp xcga xu eaossm’g o ncmdlz’n wce e lmzbs  
vhl bcvx txjegmg w qse amjkiak ngi e hlf  
yac gbr b zeg v jej euiwigh ht ff aulw  
ze’f d pbwiwoee sijmvrt

He was surprised to see that the page signifier, fnbl fbcj leise / bnedtd-uue / gwfzur, appeared to point to the same page in Gray’s as the last one, except that it translated to 547 / 21 / tongue, two sentences away from the prior reference.

> The under surface of the tongue, at its back part, is connected with the lower jaw by the Genio-hyo-glossi muscles; from its sides, the mucous membrane is reflected to the inner surface of the gums; and, in front, a distinct fold of that membrane, the fraenum linguae, is formed beneath its under surface.

Why so much focus on the damn tongue, John thought, shifting in his seat as his thoughts darted back again to Sherlock’s tongue. He first typed in the encrypted text. He was typing the Gray’s passage into the decoder without noticing the first words that unscrambled, too caught up in a daydream in which he finally was able to press his own tongue against that infuriating Cupid’s bow....And then he looked down.

His heart and his stomach performed synchronised somersaults.


	8. Chapter 8

In a way, it was amazing how much one name could all-at-once enrage, enervate, and excite him. But that was the power of one James Moriarty, living or dead.

i made tea for moriarty after his release  
he carved for me an apple  
when we first went to angelo’s i couldn’t eat a thing  
not just because i was waiting for a cab  
why did i say i was married to my work  
he’s a horrible partner

It still exasperated John that Sherlock had been so cavalier about Moriarty’s release, had all but invited him over to _their home_ just to make a point. Just to play cat and mouse with a rabid tiger. So his first reaction, even before the simultaneous heart/stomach flips, had been a surge of anger at the first words, “I made tea for Moriarty,” as pat and unassuming as, “and Mrs. Hudson came up with biscuits.” Then the almost-insinuated intimacy of “he carved for me an apple.” What the fuck did that mean?

But it was the last four lines that caused John’s anatomy to engage in acrobatics. Was that…an admission? So early, so soon?

John knew that when these words were written, Moriarty was dead but his network was very much alive. He imagined Sherlock in another grimy bolt hole, possibly hungry, possibly wishing he had that tea and apple, and in his privation growing hungry for other comforts too. For other familiar sights – Angelo’s, London cabs, John. Or did his memory of that first night at Angelo’s disrupt even his exile’s hunger?

John had mentally revisited that night more times than he could count. He knew every line of their conversation, could recall every glance Sherlock had made over John’s shoulder and through the window beyond, could physically remember the few glances that had landed squarely on John’s face because it was those that had made him bold enough to ask if Sherlock had a boyfriend. That he was shot down so expertly hardly mattered now, but it was tremendous, it was revelatory that in the rational vaults of Sherlock’s mind palace, their conversation had not been recorded in mere facts, or as filler between deductions, but as a central event in and of itself, and one that engendered sentiment, perhaps even… regret?  Considering how many times John had mentally kicked himself for being so forward, that was almost worth crowing about, if it wasn’t so damn sad.

He heard movement downstairs. Remembering his commitment to tea service, he threw on his dressing gown and padded quickly down the stairs. Kettle full, kettle on, tea in mugs on table, honey at the ready, all before Sherlock had finished his morning ablutions. He entered the kitchen with eyebrows cocked and a smile fighting to surface from beneath a disinterested gaze. “Oh, you’ve made tea.”

“Yes, you brat, I’m finally doing my flatmately duty and making you some tea.” John had been grinning while dishing out this mild abuse, but he sobered and said solemnly, “and I will keep on making you tea as long as you let me.” He looked up at Sherlock’s altered face, confusion and hope there in equal parts, and knew he had said exactly the right thing.

John handed Sherlock his mug with his left hand, and cupped his right around the fingers that received it. It was a brief touch, but it punctuated his statement better than any further words could have done.

Sherlock nodded, and they sat with their tea and looked everywhere but at each other.

John cleared his throat. “So. You were nervous at Angelo’s.”

“I was about to throw myself into the path of a serial killer.”

“You were nervous at Angelo’s because of _me_.” John found the nerve to look up, and saw a familiar glint in Sherlock’s eyes.

“You are very sure of yourself, John Watson.”

John answered smirk for smirk, then felt the smirk soften into a deceptively neutral nod, “Yep. Very sure. Toast?”

“Yes, thank you.” And so they had tea and toast, and John went to work with a feeling that he had somehow just levelled up in a not-inconsequential way.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> longer and with a cliffhanger!

When John arrived at work, he realised that he had been on auto-pilot since leaving the flat, too caught up in replaying their kitchen tete-a-tete to register any of the humanity thronging around him in the morning rush. He performed a quick inventory of his stomach (damn butterflies), his veins (hot and cold alternatively), his head (light and buzzy), and his feet (uncoordinated or perhaps not quite reaching the ground?), before reaching back into memory to semi-rationally compare the current accumulation of cues with known analogues. The result didn’t surprise him, not really, but it made the butterflies go mad. It wasn’t pleasant to remember how he felt when he first began to have feelings for Mary, and it was ages since his involvement with Sholto, but he knew a crush when it reached out and bit him in the arse.

This was backwards, and it was all the more wonderful for its backwardness. He’d been fascinated with Sherlock since their first meeting, and that fascination had deepened into a profound admiration, but the absence of reciprocation (in areas of more tender or salacious potential) had effectively precluded him from straying into the dangerous territory of infatuation. It was one of John’s gifts that he rarely longed for what he could not have. He had mourned Sherlock almost as intensely as he would have done a lover, but without the regret of the unrequited. It was never an option.

Until it was.

And now that it was far more than an option…it was as if the tourniquet had been unlashed, or heat reintroduced to frozen extremities. There was the pins and needles pain of deprivation flooded with plenty, and the rush of formerly itinerant emotion finally finding a home. More than these though, there was the sweetness of something unlooked for being, despite itself, perfect.

_Forty-two and crushing on my flatmate. Brilliant (no really, it’s_ brilliant _). I have a crush on Sherlock Holmes, world’s only consulting sociopath._ A nurse in the hallway looked at him oddly, and John realised he was grinning like a loon, if loons could grin. He schooled his features and walked on with a nod.

His thoughts turned back to the diary and its secrets, and it sobered him sufficiently to consider where Sherlock might be in all this. He had given him the journal and the means to unlock it. He had reached for his hand that night at Holmes cottage, and had not retreated from any of John’s minute advances. He seemed more attentive, or at least less disinterested, than ever before. Was this what Sherlock locked like when he was in the middle of his own infatuation?

As John rode the crests and troughs of giddy feeling throughout the day, he forced himself to ponder next steps. He had never been comfortable with allowing a reciprocated crush to flounder unpursued, but this one meant more. It was already backed by genuine love and affection, respect and admiration, but all the same Sherlock could be surprisingly fragile. John resolved to make an affirmative but gentle move. After a few more diary entries. He was becoming more than a little addicted to their terse poetry.

Upon arriving back at the flat, he kicked off his shoes and brought his decrypting materials to the sitting room. Sherlock was out, but he had texted earlier (and oh what it did to John’s stomach to receive _that,_ what should have been a familiar note of no consequence, _dear lord_ ) that he should be back in time for tea.

Tea! Another opportunity to demonstrate his appreciation. He readied the tea things and started the kettle, then sat down to work out the next set of ciphers.

The next page reference, tmxle mmjh srjvv / eide / fxaeeqwl, became three zero seven / nine / arteries, and the ninth sentence of page 307 yielded:

> The arteries are found in nearly every part of the animal body, with the exception of the hairs, nails, and epidermis; and the larger trunks usually occupy the most protected situations, running, in the limbs, along the flexor side, where they are less exposed to injury.

  _Less exposed to injury sounds good_ , John thought.He typed the encrypted text into the OTP site:

ba’w nf eseoij ervqm xnba  
guvev xmrolj qxntx w kxsp  
mu amyd zcx janm aal jpxv rtqb rnm  
mx kmkn’b nsat bz leyo qt jxx z fpjenwxuio mlzmer  
z bnfw iffy elisp qoi rpv xmfyxij  
ogh hhyqv urmeen wa fvue wmbviewf qzzq uzay hugm  
p ojpt cciymwxeuk psn dsl’t si dlggxfcu srb vojoryj

Then the arterial description, hoping for something exciting and exultant – but the words that unravelled weren’t nearly as pleasant.

it’s no longer early days  
three months since i fell  
mh says you left the flat next day  
he didn’t want to tell me but i threatened mutiny  
i have only taken out two targets  
and found myself in near jeopardy more than that  
i keep forgetting you won’t be shooting any cabbies

John almost growled outloud when he thought of Mycroft’s smugness and Sherlock’s fool’s errand. He understood the appeal of danger and the lure of the unknown, but it still goaded him that Sherlock had embarked on this endeavour alone, and apparently with only the slimmest of fraternal (read: governmental) support. The growl was held in check by the last line. He knew he would continue to shoot every metaphorical bad cabbie that got in Sherlock’s way. That was a vow stronger than tea or promises.

Sherlock wandered in at the tail end of these ruminations, with the bleary look that John knew meant too much time at a Bart’s microscope. He gestured to the tea and received a genuine Sherlockian smile for his efforts. Sherlock walked back from the kitchen to the sitting room table, sipping tea, and glanced over at the open page of the journal.

“The next one isn’t as grim. But you might not like it.”

“Cheers,” John laughed. Wasn’t that strange, how he could be this close to the object of his tumultuous regard and still feel more centred than when he was walking the halls of the clinic?

And what could Sherlock mean, “you might not like it”?

He worked out that fnbl fvdw yohf / kpieu / edk was five five four / three / eye, and quickly found the right passage in _Gray’s_ :

> The axes of the eyeballs are nearly parallel, and do not correspond to the axes of the orbits, which are directed outwards.

 He stared at the inscrutable message, and wondered what secret it held.

dhrdxlsf yhkec  
czfrj mdobi vr fregvuvs wzsvs ylns lcn  
gjve xzt uvqzskz ivbr lvj rvybx ccvco ldgu tyi rtu qgg  
rr chx es prm

He translated, and then he knew.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more I try to write scenes like this, the more I appreciate the talents of others and am grateful for readers' forbearance.

The first reaction was perilous, literally the stuff of nightmares. His nightmares. Sandbags yielding to explosions, limbs doing the same. The perpetual stink of the hothoused and heavy-kitted, close quarters despite the vastness of the territory. Kandahar. And Sherlock had gone there:

kandahar today  
every bloke in fatigues looks like you  
even the gingers even the young bucks even the old men  
no one is you

The panic was short-circuited by a surge of affection as strong and uncontainable as any he’d ever experienced. It roared through his chest and made his ears hum. Sherlock was standing by the window, rosining his bow and absently watching the cars pass, unaware of the storm peaking and calming behind him. John rose, and before he could think about what he was doing or why he was doing it or whether he should, he had closed the gap between them, gently taken the bow out of Sherlock’s surprised hands, gripped him by the waist, and spun him around. John looked up, barely noticing the shock his actions had triggered, and spoke in a soft, sure voice.

“You. Are amazing. Not your deductions or your bloody brain, though those are top drawer. But you. Just you. I hate that you had to take one step of that journey alone. I hate it more than you will ever understand. But oh god I love what it bought us. I’m absolutely mad about what it bought us.” He reached up to cup Sherlock’s jaw as he looked into his eyes, finally seeing the pain and relief there. Nothing for it but to take the next step, and so he did. 

It began as a series of coaxing kisses, slight and gestural, John’s lips nodding their way around the corners of Sherlock’s mouth. When a stunned Sherlock was unavailing (but curious, oh John could tell he was curious), he changed tacks and leaned up to place a gentle kiss at the corner of Sherlock’s right eye, whispering, “optic nerve”. His hands were still balanced on Sherlock’s waist, and he felt the body beneath them relax slightly at the reference to the first _Gray’s_ call-sign. Sherlock closed his eyes and made a noise somewhere between a hum and a sigh. That minute vocalisation took away whatever scrap of doubt or reserve John had left. Energised, he immediately grazed each of Sherlock’s closed eyelids and whilse whispering, “orbital region”. He nipped gently at Sherlock’s earlobe and tickled into his ear, “tympanum”. Satisfied with the autonomic shudder that rippled through Sherlock’s frame, he reached up to lightly kiss that patrician forehead and whispered, “brain”. His mouth returned to its original quarry and growled low, “tongue”, before commencing a kiss that, while it would win no awards for perfection of execution (yes there were teeth on teeth, a hurry-up-and-wait pace, and an near-fall into the Baker Street window when John, still balancing on the balls of his feet, almost lost his footing), earned full marks for ardour. It was the kind of kiss that foretells many future kisses, more perfect kisses. It was a quick learner of a kiss.

John’s heels finally touched the floor. Sherlock’s first word, after, was “John”, and John’s first word was “alright?”

Sherlock nodded.

“So you were in, uh, Kandahar? All the girls love a soldier, hmm?”

Sherlock nodded again, with a bonus eye roll that said, _a little more complicated than that_ , _thank you_.

“I don’t want to know what you were doing there or whether it was safe, is that right?”

Sherlock nodded once more, with more hesitation but something resolute in his eyes. _Best not to push it, then. He’s here. He was safe enough to get_ here _._

They were still facing one another, John’s hands having returned to Sherlock’s waist, and Sherlock’s resting tentatively on John’s upper arms.

John’s thumbs made lazy circles in the small radius where they had rested, and with a small nod of his head signifying, “that thing we just did,” he ventured, “Was that okay?”

Sherlock nodded again, with subtle but noticeable vigour.

“Good. I think I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

Sherlock found his voice. “Since Angelo’s?”

“Thereabouts.”

“‘Thereabouts’ meaning earlier or ‘thereabouts’ meaning later?”

John looked at the floor, then looked back up, his smile soft and wistful. “‘Thereabouts’ meaning since always, since Bart’s and Jennifer Wilson and Angelo’s and you being married to your work. There was a time when I knew it, then made myself forget it, but I think it’s always been true. Have you _seen_ you? You’re infuriating most of the time, but you’re bloody brilliant and gorgeous _all_ of the time. You mesmerise me. You must know this, must have noticed.”

“Blind spot.”

John was tempted to search for that blind spot with his lips, but stopped himself with a facetious shrug.

“If you say so. Better that than knowing I was bloody obvious all these years and you were laughing behind your hand.”

Sherlock raised himself to his full height, indignant. “If I’d known, I would never have laughed. You saw how blind I was at Christmas. That was no playacting. It never occurred to me that…that the great, straight John Watson could…would…well, want this.” He gestured to the small space between them. “You’re too strong and it was too weak.” Sherlock slouched again as he said these last words, almost too softly for John to hear.

“‘Weak’? Is that what you think?” John stepped back a pace to see more objectively. “The man who wrote those journal entries was not weak. He was seeing parts of himself more clearly and fighting through the consequences. That’s _strength_ , Sherlock. And I never said I was straight.” Sherlock looked unconvinced, but not stubbornly so. John marked the exchange a win and moved back to his place well within Sherlock’s personal space. “Am I reading the diary correctly? You did recognise that you…you cared for me?”

Sherlock again rolled his eyes, and John almost laughed at the familiar exasperation pursing those just-snogged lips, drawing them together with disdain. He could laugh because there was something else there – a light in Sherlock’s eyes that said, _thank you for finding me out_ , even as his mouth spoke the omnipresent shibboleth, “Obviously, John. Do keep up.” And then he smiled as if he couldn’t help himself, and it was bold and sheepish allatonce, the kind of smile that lit up John’s spine and crackled in his chest like a firecracker.

Things were still too new with them (so old, but still so new), that they instinctively took one step backward. They did not plunge madly into another snogging session, or take one another to bed or the sofa like teenagers might have done. Instead, John grinned widely, tilted his head, and asked, “More tea?” and Sherlock laughed while nodding, and John went to the kitchen and started the kettle. Sherlock picked up his bow once more.

*          *          *

As Sherlock played low, a peaceful air John didn’t recognize but immediately loved, John went back to the table and turned the page in the journal. The next entry was the longest one yet, and just looking at the scrambled letters made John’s stomach flutter:

momd mn aez jeazcxmbkid flsub  
t mzquyl oojn zb  
olsu gf uysrh’s lhmgvzi nl hcshxy eu jz whx yvwje  
eta arvdxvd uic t qwkyc evyy ms r cimtpwsu gm  
m fbtkmme wmupr ky bui vdeaa tf kadr whp xnkasgy  
uqt zw ohimh jr gfmbsxa gh ax hrd pufpr gx vfhwinz bb trffprx  
t zrgl aswzz’j mfokkpiawgr osw dsmbkf  
ihtb awny jdgt umv ovvn luo cmou ql tuh ypvgk uqoy

He cracked his knuckles dramatically (though Sherlock didn’t turn from his playing) and set to decoding the next page marker, “osk uiam kbx / fsmme / fqcj,” which yielded “one nine six / seven / face.” The passage in Gray’s was promising:

> The Levator Anguli Oris (musculus caninus) arises by a broad attachment from the canine fossa, immediately below the infra-orbital foramen; its fibres incline downwards and a little outwards, to be inserted into the angle of the mouth, intermingling its fibres with those of the Zygomatici, the Depressor anguli oris, and the Orbicularis.

Intermingling fibres, insertions into the angle of the mouth…was he ready to read this? As it happened, he both was and wasn’t, because it wasn’t what he expected ( _hoped?_ ) at all.


	11. Chapter 11

Despite the fact that he had just well-kissed the man who had written the words, John felt as though he’d been jabbed in the stomach when he read the first line:

this is all sentimental trash  
i should burn it  
what if there’s someone as clever as jm out there  
who wonders why i carry with me a battered ga  
i stashed fiche in the spine to hide the purpose  
but it would be obvious to me and could be obvious to another  
i read harry’s inscription and wonder  
what your face did when you read it the first time

It was years since Sherlock had had this (understandable) moment of self-protecting doubt, but it reminded John, uncomfortably, that Sherlock was someone for whom emotional entanglements were (or at least had been) anathema. He imagined how horrifying it must have been for this previously inviolable man to experience that growing vulnerability. It was beyond gratifying to be the subject of Sherlock’s regard, of course it was, but John nonetheless felt a sharp twinge of guilt at also being the source of such distress. And what if it caught up with them, Sherlock’s inherent resistance to sentiment, amplified by the inevitable anxiety that was part and parcel of every nascent involvement? John felt himself sicken at the thought of a Sherlock-grade backlash.

Unfortunately, this was the exact moment that Sherlock volunteered: “It wasn’t so bad, you know.” Caught up in his own thoughts, John hadn’t noticed that Sherlock had stopped playing and was watching him intently.

He looked up, his brow furrowed in an incipient question.

Before he could ask it, Sherlock continued: “Much of the time I was tracking movements or developing informants – tedious work, but not dangerous as long as I kept under the radar. It’s not surprising that I grew a bit… _maudlin_ in my isolation.” He sniffed dismissively at the word, and failed to notice John’s darkening expression.

“If this is all just maudlin _trash_ , Sherlock, why the hell am I wasting my time on it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He slammed down the laptop and charged out of the room before Sherlock could even register the change in mood.

Alone in his room, John sat on his bed and allowed his racing thoughts to sort themselves into clusters of meaning:  Sherlock was an ass, he himself was an ass, Sherlock was a socially backward git, he was an over-reacting git… _oh bugger all_. What was he even over-reacting to? Exactly what he’d anticipated might happen. If he was going to flare up every time Sherlock put his foot in it, he might as well start taking blood pressure medication now. 

He remembered the final sentence of the last entry, and groaned inwardly. _I wonder what your face did when you read it the first time._ Sherlock may be divided, but no small part of him was reflected in these poignant grace notes.

John ran his hands over his face as if to rub off the unease, and fortified himself for the next exchange.

When he returned to the sitting room, Sherlock was sitting in his chair looking into the embers of the dying fire. He looked pained and unsettled, and John immediately felt the same twinge of guilt and sympathy he’d experienced a half hour earlier.

“John. I didn’t mean – ”

“It’s fine, Sherlock. I shouldn’t have gotten upset. You can both care and be uncomfortable with caring. It’s normal. Just don’t…don’t forget who you’re talking to, okay? I’m still getting used to the idea of you as…something other than who you were. Don’t give me whiplash.”

John gave a half-hearted smile while donning his jacket. “Look, I’m going to take a break from the journal for a couple of days, let things settle a bit. Going out for a pint now, but I’ll see you later. It’s all fine, really. I’ll see you soon.” Sherlock, neither mollified nor protesting, lifted his chin in acknowledgement then turned back to the fire.

*          *          *

When John returned to the flat later that evening, the sitting room was empty, and his laptop was open again. He tapped the track pad and saw the OTP site onscreen. Next to the laptop, a scrap of paper read:

snd geew larrs jmmed syutapp --> 603 / 7 / stomach

Looking closer, he could see that Sherlock had indeed typed into the OTP decryption site a passage describing the stomach:

> When empty, it occupies only a small part of the left hypochondriac region, the spleen lying behind it; the left lobe of the liver covers it in front, and the under surface of the heart rests upon it above, and in front, being separated from it by the left lobe of the liver and pericardium.

Sherlock had already typed the encrypted entry into the box labeled “Your message:”

wssai bghrmvhgf gt  
q xgzq jmu ltae  
lcd recsx wvzxjvaq ncw ucj  
pp ilqei  
ob wfga vavsx fhe rpr spvl q np iehui  
elj fzff m kfga xz xmskgqo eev bam yjjg v vaa vmvqupk xyw jincg

 The decrypted words glowed out from the screen on their familiar lavender background, and John let out a long sigh, somewhere between regret and relief.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mea culpa for the long delay. Thank you so much for reading!

alone protected me  
i told you that  
and alone protects you now  
my alone  
it isnt right but the more i am alone  
the more i want to protect and the less i can stomach the price

_What he must have gone through_ , John thought for the hundredth time _. What an idiot I’ve been_ , he thought for the thousandth. He stood up and turned back toward the kitchen and Sherlock’s room, making a decision in a single step. His stride grew determined, and then he was at Sherlock’s door. He stilled for a moment, feeling his heart pumping adrenaline and anticipation. Was Sherlock awake? He listened at the door, but could hear nothing over the pulse in his ears.

Before he could tap the door to knock, there was a soft whoosh of movement and then Sherlock’s voice, steady and low:  “Come in, John.”

John pushed the door gently, as if the offer would be rescinded if taken too hastily. He peered in, almost sheepish, and saw Sherlock perched on the side of the bed wearing pyjama bottoms and tshirt, as well as a look of concerned anticipation. John opened his mouth to begin an apology from the doorway, but thought better of it, going to Sherlock and balancing gingerly on the edge of the mattress. He paused, forcing himself to recalibrate from agitated to calm.

“What is it, John.” The full stop was clear, no question mark. A request for information.

“I wanted to apologise. I do apologise. I underestimated you, Sherlock. Underestimated the depths of feeling you were capable of, even as you were showing me in line after line. What I said earlier, that it was alright if you were uncomfortable with caring…that was so misguided. I should have been thanking you.” He murmured the next: “I should be thanking you.”

As Sherlock listened, his eyes drifted down to the space in between his left hand and John’s right. He closed the gap, allowing his thumb to repeat the same stroking gesture he had first ventured at Holmes Cottage. He spoke so low it was almost a whisper, and John unconsciously leaned in to hear.

“It was terrifying, you know. Jumping off that roof. Not the jump – I was mentally prepared for that, and trusted Mycroft to mount a quality stage production – but the part after. The part where you would rush up, as I knew you would, where you would reach for my wrist, as I knew you would. Where you wouldn’t feel a pulse, as I knew you mustn’t do. But I wasn’t sure that awful squash ball would be enough to still it, not when it rested under your thumb. And when I heard you insisting, heard you say, ‘he’s my friend’, I honestly didn’t know if the ruse was over because I could have sworn my heart leapt out of my chest.”

As Sherlock spoke, John’s fingers answered his movements, small gestures with his thumb, gentle squeezes, a light grazing of Sherlock’s pulse point as he walked them through that terrible day at Bart’s.

Sherlock continued. “Only the thought of a sniper’s bullet to your brain made me hope that it would work. Only that got me through the next hour, week, month, years. I didn’t know why at first, only that your life, your ability to live it, was more important than mine. The rest…well, the rest you’re reading. The rest came later.”

When Sherlock mentioned the sniper, John’s touch became more insistent, and his hand moved to Sherlock’s knee, massaging his lower thigh. John was listening, but he was speaking too.

“We both missed one another, in most senses of that word.”

“Yes.”

His right hand still firmly grasping Sherlock’s thigh, John leaned over and with his right, cupped Sherlock’s jaw and whispered, “I’m glad I didn’t miss this,” before bringing his lips to Sherlock’s. It was not a simple kiss. It was the kind of kiss that begins in one emotion and ends in another after having travelled a great distance between. John had pulled Sherlock almost into his lap, and they were enunciating each new feeling, each new stage, with more fervent noises, mmm hmms of appreciation and yes and please and thank you. Every so often a groan would escape them as their hands and mouths found new territory. It was a kiss that began in gratitude and quickly became more heated, more alive, until even their mouths couldn’t contain it.

They paused, resting their foreheads against one another’s. They were still fully clothed and seated on the edge of the bed. Neither man wanted to open his eyes, and neither had stopped moving his hands. John was tracing figure-eights on the back of Sherlock’s neck; Sherlock was reading John’s upper arm musculature through his jumper.

Finally, still braced on Sherlock’s brow, John spoke. “Sherlock, may I sleep here? Just sleep. I just want…”

“…I know. Of course. Please.”

John pulled away long enough to strip to his pants and vest, then went around to the other side of the bed and climbed under the covers. Sherlock did the same, and then they were beside one another again, prone, each staring at the other as if with new eyes.

Their hands found each other again, and this time John squeezed tightly as he said, “You know, I could look at you all night.” With his other hand, he softly raked his fingers through the dark curls, causing Sherlock to close his eyes languidly like a cat in sunshine.

“Oh, I could let you.”

They both smiled at that. In the end, the three pints John had enjoyed at the pub asserted themselves before he could make good on this commitment, and he fell asleep with one hand in Sherlock’s and the other arm curving along Sherlock’s pillow.

*          *          *

The next day John woke to an empty bed still warm from Sherlock’s body. He stretched and savoured the memory of their snogging, then listened to the sounds of Sherlock in the kitchen. Coffee. Making coffee. Saturday morning coffee. Perfect.

When he arrived in the kitchen, John noticed the journal was on the table, with several pages marked with tabs that had not been there before.

“What is this, Sherlock?”

“Good morning to you too, John. I…I decided to help you along with your work. You can read as much or as little as you like, of course, but if you’re curious, these are the ones that matter to me most. The rest are repetitive or relatively insubstantial in comparison. Do you mind the editorialisation?”

“No, no, of course not. Thank you. Do you mind if I start now?”

Sherlock paused as he poured John’s coffee, and considered. “No, I think that would be alright.”

John took his coffee into the front room and sat at his laptop. The first tabbed page bore the reference fnbl fbcj mwb / gzf / jkyn, which John quickly translated to five four two / six / skin. He blushed with the thought of what “skin” could portend, but revised his expectations when he saw Sherlock’s sombre face. He found the relevant passage,

> The fibro-areolar tissue forms the framework of the cutis; it is composed of firm interlacing bundles of white fibrous tissue, intermixed with a much smaller proportion of yellow elastic fibres, the amount of which varies in different parts.

Then turned his attention to the next entry:

vssxm drzl ksrly  
yxtv shh giizww hri znfinffqoyxk xjyg mkktxwf  
httm zeg aj gck zwg fc jeaup  
auu nuld  
rgh mauzr kwiz  
rbx lamjwzszr gsk kwr  
xka jnyne bwyl iocdi sttojgv b pois ym xpyr plpm eragqn  
clx lpv qods nnkujpz itl boem

After carefully entering the encrypted passage, he typed in the _Gray’s_ text. He didn’t make it past the second line before a feral anger fired in his gut.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating upgrade!
> 
> This chapter is really part 1 of 2, as will be obvious.

John looked up from the text at Sherlock, still standing in the kitchen nursing his now-cold coffee. “Sherlock. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like. Tell me that it doesn’t say, ‘close call today / held and burned and interrogated then escaped’”.

But Sherlock’s face still held the same sombre, almost apologetic expression. The rest of the entry made John feel no better, even as the last line told of an effective mission:

they had me but not my stash  
not this  
not henry gray  
and therefore not you  
the burns hurt worse because i have to tend them myself  
but two more targets are gone

The anger was already turning leaden in his belly; images of an imprisoned Sherlock, a bound Sherlock, a suffering Sherlock, ricocheted in his mind, making him dizzy. He had wanted to believe that Sherlock’s time away had been one continuous stakeout, or that it had been one successful long-range bullet after another, a series of take-downs involving no risk to Sherlock’s life and no harm to his person. He had known intellectually that couldn’t be true – the journal itself bore witness to the dirty, bloody mess in which Sherlock must have sometimes found himself. But knowing intellectually that the blood on the journal was Sherlock’s own, and knowing on a deeper level that Sherlock had suffered real pain, been in the midst of actual danger…it was too much. Nothing John could do or say at this distance from events could possibly be enough. But he could not do nothing.

“Sherlock,” he whispered.

“Yes, John?”

“I…may I see them? I think I need to see them.”

“I don’t think that is a good idea. It’s fine, John. All healed. It’s over, you don’t have to think about it. I wanted you to know so that you would understand it was never a lark that kept me away. It was real work, but it is over now.”

“I understand that, and I think I understand why you wanted me to see this entry, but Sherlock I need to see the scars too. I need to _see_ that they have healed, that they’re part of the past, that they can’t hurt you anymore. Can you give me that, please? I know it is a lot to ask.”

Sherlock set the cold coffee mug onto the worktop. Tentatively, he walked half way to where John sat at the sitting room table, then stopped.

“Not here, please. My room.”

John nodded as he stood, and before Sherlock could turn away, he reached over and took his hand, pulling him lightly into an embrace. “Thank you” was all he said, and then released Sherlock to follow him back to Sherlock’s room.

Sherlock was already unbuttoning his shirt as they walked, his back to John, rigid and officious. But then he paused next to the bed, seeming unsure how to continue. John stepped toward him. “Here,” he said, and Sherlock drew his arms back in invitation as John gently removed the shirt.

John forced himself into clinician mode long enough to assess the damage. Almost a dozen scars, some with the tell-tale circular pattern of cigarette burns, others in less regular formation from God knew what implement of torture. John tossed the shirt onto the bed and closed the gap between them. Sherlock’s muscles went taut as he stared at the wall, waiting under John’s scrutiny. John’s hands carefully catalogued each mark, gut-sick with the evidence of Sherlock’s torture, but satisfied that the wounds were physically healed and that none of them had suffered significant infection.

Instinctively he leaned into Sherlock’s back. Bracing his hands on Sherlock’s waist, he rested his forehead at the base of Sherlock’s neck and felt pulled there, a magnetised beam holding him fast.

Slowly, John revisited each scar, first with his fingers – this time his own touch and not that of Doctor Watson’s – and then with his lips, as if each kiss could erase the legacy of pain. He felt Sherlock’s spine melt into the touch.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

Sherlock nodded mutely, his breath gone ragged.

In spite of himself, despite the horrors represented by the unnatural divots in Sherlock’s skin, John smiled. He’d never expected to be here, his hand on Sherlock’s naked waist, mouthing along his back, causing him to slowly unfurl…but oh the thrill that they had made it this far, no matter how long it had taken. His mind crowded with all the ways he could make Sherlock come undone, and his smile grew, pushing away the horrible visions of a suffering Sherlock and replacing them with images alternatively tender and wicked.

Having stuttered out as John began his ministrations, Sherlock’s mind now appeared to come back online, and his body followed. He reached back to pull John closer, clumsily untucking John’s shirt as he did so, fingers grazing the bare skin of John’s waist. It wasn’t the most graceful insinuation, but the message was clear. John broke contact long enough to pull his jumper, shirt, and vest off allatonce, quickly homing back to position. For John, it had been years since anyone moved him this much, and for Sherlock it might have been a lifetime. John did not want to take anything for granted, but he couldn’t resist the urge to pull their bodies together, John’s bare chest aligned with Sherlock’s bare back, holding himself apart just enough to avoid any implied insistence that they proceed further than this perfect place.

It was Sherlock who raised the bar, suddenly turning into John’s arms and reaching down to cup his face in his hands. “I’m okay, John.” Kiss. “I’m here.” Kiss. “You’re here.” Kiss. “It’s over.” With each kiss, small parts of John Watson uncoiled and relaxed, knots of fear and uncertainty he hadn’t known he was carrying came undone under the careful assurance of Sherlock’s lips. He forgot that he was holding back, forgot that there was any reason to, as he let their mouths and hands roam freely, sometimes sliding lightly over arms and waist, sometimes grabbing handfuls of trouser or denim-clad arse with a desperation that would have surprised them both if it didn’t feel so overdue.

John’s voice was muffled as he mouthed at Sherlock’s clavicle, his fingers dancing along Sherlock’s peaked nipples. “I know it’s still early, but –”

“Shut up, John, and take me to bed.”

They both huffed out a laugh and began to somewhat frantically undress the other, showing no mercy to belts and zips, kissing fiendishly in between and breaking contact only to remove their own socks. Soon they were both in pants and nothing more. Sherlock leaned down to bring his lips to John’s as his thumb stroked lightly over John’s scar, slipping down to graze his nipple then back to study the wrecked skin more closely. John had expected this study from the moment his shirt came off, but it was leagues more tender than he could have anticipated, and the care in Sherlock’s touch, the questions in his gaze, sparked a profound heat in John’s core. There would be time for further study later. Now, he needed Sherlock to know that this was more than snogging and a cataloguing of skin.

“C’mere”, he said, pulling Sherlock with him onto the bed. He backed up to give Sherlock’s long frame room to stretch out, then brought his own body into alignment as he all but attacked Sherlock’s mouth. He had always adored kissing, thought of it as a method of communication alternately sacred and profane, and he was relishing learning Sherlock’s own esoteric language. The give and take of tongues and lips, pressure and forbearance, eagerness and tenderness alternating dominion…it was dizzying. For his part, Sherlock was reinventing himself with each tonal shift, and John found himself lost on wave after wave of sensation.

A slight change in their bodies brought John back to himself long enough to mark that their hands had remained resolutely north of the border. Capricious and determined, he grasped Sherlock’s upper thigh and interwove their knees, then reached around to cup Sherlock’s arse and pull his pelvis close to his own, eliciting a moan from Sherlock that made John beam internally. Without breaking stride or their kiss, John firmly caressed a swath of skin from Sherlock’s shoulders to his arse, kneading the latter suggestively even as he ground his erection into Sherlock’s own. It wasn’t subtle, and wasn’t meant to be.

“Want to see you. Want to feel you”, he whispered, tugging at the waistband of Sherlock’s pants, a question in his touch.

“God yes, John, please” was the answering groan.

Once Sherlock was fully naked, time slowed. John felt all his certainties, his swagger, falter in the wake of the tremendousness of the moment. He didn’t reach for Sherlock’s cock or grind himself into Sherlock’s hips. He started over again, caressing Sherlock’s chest, side, hips, and thighs lightly, exploratory and tender, and watched with satisfaction as Sherlock’s eyes closed, and he let out a contented hum. The sound went right to John’s cock, and he turned his attentions to Sherlock’s rapidly thickening erection. He whispered _sotto voce_ in Sherlock’s ear, “Sherlock, I’m going to touch you now”. It would have been impossible to say which of the two men were more aroused by the words.

John palmed Sherlock’s length in one firm stroke, revelling in the velvet hard certainty of it. He relished the contrast between the unequivocal heat radiating from Sherlock’s body and his tentative half-cries and bitten off moans: The flesh was keen but the brain needed to let go. John stepped up his game, wringing more explicit sounds out of Sherlock with every twist of his wrist, every assured pass up and down the shaft and over the leaking head. It had been some time since he’d had any practice, but it took no time to remember not only what he liked to feel, but also what he loved to give. Alternating firm and gentle strokes, up-and-down and in spiral, sometimes with extra attention to Sherlock’s cockhead or only a glancing courtesy, John felt himself harden as he felt Sherlock unravel.

And then he whispered, close to Sherlock’s ear, the final push that he knew would bring Sherlock home. “God Sherlock, you feel so good in my hand, so gorgeous. You’re doing so well, so well in my hand. Let me hear you, Sherlock, let me know you love it as much as I do. I want to hear you, you gorgeous man. Come for me, let me hear you.” That was all it took. With a sound that was somewhere between a whine and a groan, Sherlock came in hard pulsing beats across John’s hand and his own stomach.

Immediately, before Sherlock could retreat or rethink, John took his mouth in a deep kiss and poured into it every ounce of gratitude and appreciation he could muster. He paused only long enough to say, “Thank you, Sherlock. Thank you for coming home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to, y'know, come.
> 
> Sincere thank yous to anyone and everyone who has been patient through these many long interstitial pauses. I have a few more coded messages to go and then a good ol' HEA. 
> 
> Comments are precious, and you all continue to be very beautiful.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief closing of the Chapter 13 loop. Back to ciphers in Chapter 15.

Sherlock was still breathing heavily but he’d begun to come back to himself when they broke their kiss. He gazed down at John’s body, at his chest rising and falling, at his cock hard and wanting. Sherlock's face reflected both perplexity and determination as his hand reached towards John’s straining erection, but John stopped him with a soft interception of fingers. “No, love, it’s okay, you don’t have to.” 

Sherlock bent his head into the crook of John’s shoulder and snuffled out a sigh, an admixture of relief and embarrassment. “I want to…soon. But….”

“…but you just received the best hand job of your life and you’re a little dazed? I understand completely. Hey, come here”, and with that gentle command he lifted Sherlock’s tucked chin and kissed him sweetly. “I want you to, too, but for now I just want you to watch and listen. Can you do that for me?” Sherlock nodded.

John took himself in hand, his eyelids fluttering closed for a moment before he opened his eyes again and locked them onto Sherlock’s. But Sherlock’s eyes were nowhere near John’s face. Instead, he was avidly watching every pull from John’s fist, every grace note of thumb and forefinger, every twist. John could practically see the wheels turning.

A self-satisfied exhale from John, then he began to murmur in a low growl, “See what you do to me, you gorgeous man. See how hard I am, just for you. Never knew how much I wanted you until. Never knew how much I would have missed. Touch me, anywhere, Sherlock, please.”

And Sherlock did, his hand sliding over John’s thighs, around to his lower back and down to his arse. He matched John’s rhythm, firming his grasp when John’s grip tightened, touching him glancingly when John slowed his hand.

“God, so good, just like this. Felt so good to touch you, felt so good to feel you come. Want you so much, Sherlock, always. Oh god Sherlock, I’m gonna--”

Sherlock’s eyes went wide as saucers, and John came.

*          *          *

John, veteran of many a messy sexual encounter, immediately went into business mode, getting up from the bed and going into the loo to retrieve a damp flannel. When he returned, Sherlock was lying on the bed exactly as John had left him, come and all.

“You all right there?”

No answer. Sherlock was staring at his abdomen, which had borne the brunt of their expenditures.

“Sherlock, you in there?”

No answer.

John approached tentatively, flannel in hand, and laid a light touch on Sherlock’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m here.”

Sherlock blinked up at John, as if surprised that he had moved.

“Hey gorgeous, you okay? Let me clean you up while the flannel is still warm, alright?”

Sherlock nodded, and let John minister to him.

John threw the flannel to the floor and climbed back into bed, bringing the duvet with him and covering them both. “Hey again,” he said, and laced his fingers with Sherlock’s. “Talk to me?”

Sherlock swallowed. “Those things you said…”

“Yeah?”

“Those were…good. They were good.”

“Glad you think so. I can get a little carried away, but I meant every word. Was everything else…was it okay?”

Sherlock nodded. “More than.”

“Good, that’s good. Hey, I know it’s barely noon, but I could go in for a nap. Can you sleep?”

In answer, Sherlock rolled further into the curve of John’s body, squeezing his fingers and leaning up for a brief kiss. “Sleep well, John.” And they did.


End file.
